British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday he had not set an "arbitrary date" for pulling British soldiers out of Iraq.

Any exit strategy "depends on the job being done," Blair told the BBC.

The strategy for withdrawal had always been to "retire as the Iraqi capability builds up," said Blair, who is in Brighton, southern coast of England, for the annual conference of his Labor Party.

"What we do depends on the job being done. There is no arbitrary date that's being set and the allies are all in exactly the same position," he said.

"Our mandate there from the UN is to stay there for as long as the Iraqi government wants us and as long as it takes to build up the capability of the Iraqi forces," Blair added.

"There is no doubt in my mind at all that what is happening in Iraq now is crucial for the future of our own security, never the security of Iraq or the greater Middle East," he said."It is crucial for the security of the world. If they are defeated - this type of global terrorism and insurgency in Iraq - we will defeat them everywhere."

Blair made the remarks while responding to a report on Sunday by The Observer newspaper, which said that British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May according to detailed plans to be published next month.

According to the newspaper, the plans drawn up by Britain and the United States will be presented to the Iraqi parliament in October.

Britain, a staunch US ally in the Iraq war, has some 8,500 troops positioned in Iraq, with most of them based in the south of the country near Basra.

Source: Xinhua